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The Life of Spiders

© 2017 Wendy Pye Publishing Ltd Written and designed by the Wendy Pye team

Photo credits: Shutterstock Inc.: ©–makuromi: Cover; ©–Cathy Keifer: pp. 1, 13, 17; ©–Melinda Fawver: p. 3; ©–Peter Waters: p. 5; ©–Dennis W. Donohue: p. 6; ©–D. Kucharski K. Kucharska: pp. 7, 18; ©– kurt_G: p. 8; ©–Ajayptp: p. 9; ©–Hellen Grig: p. 10; ©–kojihirano: p. 11; ©–TAGSTOCK1: p. 12; ©–Wojciech Lisinski: pp. 14–15; ©–Dr. Morley Read: pp. 16, 23 (top); ©–Bruce MacQueen: p. 19 (top); ©–Elliotte Rusty Harold: p. 19 (bottom); ©–Audrey Snider-Bell: p. 20; ©–zstock: p. 21; ©–Bo Valentino: p. 22; ©–Kathryn Willmott: p. 23 (bottom).

ISBN: 978-1-98-850924-2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Published by Wendy Pye Publishing Ltd.

Distributed exclusively under licence in the United States of America by Follett School Solutions, Inc. 1340 Ridgeview Drive, McHenry, IL 60050

Printed in China through Colorcraft Ltd, Hong Kong.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Life of Spiders

Contents What is a Spider?...... 2 Baby Spiders...... 8 Making Silk...... 10 Spiders’ Webs...... 12 Hunting and Eating...... 16 Keeping Safe...... 18 Special Spiders...... 22 Index...... 24 What is a Spider?

A spider is not an insect. It is an animal. It has eight legs and two parts to its body. Because spiders eat insects such as flies, they are useful to people. Spiders live in most countries. They do not live in very cold places like Antarctica and the Arctic.

Eight legs

Two body parts

2 3 Most spiders have eight eyes but often can’t see very well. They don’t have any bones because their skin is hard. Spiders have fangs to kill their prey.

Hard skin

Fangs

The Huntsman spider has good eyesight so it chases, pounces, and sinks its fangs into the prey.

4 Fangs

5 Spiders live wherever they can find food. They live in the ground, in trees, and in the water. They live on top of mountains where it is cold. Spiders also live in hot deserts.

Scorpion spiders are mostly found in deserts.

6 Some spiders live under water.

7 Baby Spiders

Spiders are born from eggs. The female spider lays the eggs. She might lay 100 eggs at a time. When the baby spiders hatch, they spin silk lines to fly through the air to a new life.

The wolf spider carries her babies on her back.

8 Baby spiders are called spiderlings.

9 Making Silk

All spiders make silk inside their bodies. They use their silk to make webs, to make lines to float from place to place, to wrap up their dinner and to make their egg sacs. Some hunting spiders spin a long line of silk across the ground. This “trips up” an insect so the spider can catch it for dinner.

10 The web of this large colorful golden orb spider can be up to three feet wide.

11 Spiders’ Webs

Some spiders build webs to catch insects. The spider sits on the web and waits for the insect to fly into the web. The silk in the web is sticky so the insect can’t get away. Because the spider has special hairs on its legs, it doesn’t get stuck when it goes across the web to eat its prey.

This spider spins its web upside down.

12 This wasp spider has caught an insect in its web.

13 14 Spiders’ webs are not all the same. If a web breaks, the spider mends it with new silk.

15 Hunting and Eating

Spiders that cannot see very well make a web and wait for insects to get stuck in the web’s silk. They cover the insect in silk to eat later.

The spider covers the insect in silk to eat later.

16 Spiders with good eyesight don’t make webs. They run after insects and catch them, even big insects, like flies. Spiders also use camouflage to hunt. They sit on a flower or a leaf that is the same color as they are, and pounce when an insect comes by.

This crab spider has caught a fly that is twice as big as it is.

17 Keeping Safe

Some spiders use camouflage to keep safe. They may look like the flower or branch they are sitting on.

This spider is camouflaged on a branch.

18 These spiders are camouflaged in the flowers. Can you see them?

19 The trapdoor spider lives in the ground in a burrow. It makes a door at the entrance to its burrow. The spider uses silk to help the door open and shut. The burrow is a safe place and a place to store food.

The baboon spider has hairs on its legs that cause burning pain to its enemies.

20 Trapdoor

Spider

The trapdoor on this trapdoor spider’s burrow keeps it safe and dry.

21 Special Spiders

The biggest spider is the tarantula. Some tarantulas chase and eat birds. They look fierce with their hairy legs and huge bodies. Some spiders inject poison through their fangs to kill their prey. Some can bite people and make them sick, too. The most poisonous spiders live in Brazil and Australia.

A tarantula

22 The Brazilian wandering spider is one of the most poisonous in the world.

This is the redback spider. It lives in Australia. It is very dangerous to people.

23 Index

babies...... 8–9 camouflage...... 18–19 eggs...... 8 eyes...... 4 fangs...... 4–5, 22 insects...... 12–13, 16–17, 20 poison...... 22 silk...... 8, 10–16, 18 skin...... 4 spiderlings...... 9 tarantula...... 22 trapdoor spider...... 20–21 webs...... 10–16

24 Comprehension Questions for The Life of Spiders

• What do spiders have in common? What are some differences among spiders? (RI.2.1) • Where do spiders live? (RI.2.1) • What are spiderlings? How did the author explain the meaning of the word? (RI.2.4) • What do spiders use their silk for? (RI.2.1) • Do all spiders make webs? Explain how you know using evidence from the text. (RI.2.1) • How are the pictures on page 21 similar and different? What information can you learn from these two pictures? (RI.2.7) • How did the author make the information easy to understand? (RI.2.5) • What information did you find most interesting or surprising? Explain why. (RI.2.1) • Use the index to find information about the tarantula spider and reread. (RI.2.5) A BCDEFGHIJKLM Kindergarten Grade 1Grade 2